He that follows after righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness, and honor.
This short statement of doctrine beautifully summarizes the way of salvation for the true believer. He is the seeker of righteousness and mercy. With all his heart he seeks after these two things! He wants to be considered righteous, to be righteous, and to do righteousness. But he knows that without mercy, there is no way a sinner will ever achieve any of this righteousness.
Jesus told us to seek and we would find. Applying this to the present subject, if you will not seek after righteousness and mercy, you most certainly will not find them; nor will you find life, righteousness, and honor. Thus you can see the problem with the average person. They seek after the wrong things. Instead of seeking after mercy, they look for more self-esteem and self-aggrandizement. Rather than seeking after righteousness, they seek their own happiness and material well-being. You know, the sort of things after which the Gentiles seek (Matt. 6:30–33).
A wise man scales the city of the mighty, and casts down the strength of the confidence thereof.
Man builds his great cities by pride. Something has to motivate men to do outstanding feats, and pride or honor is key in this. When Ernest Shackleton set out upon his exceedingly dangerous mission to Antarctica, he promised fame for his men in case of success. The great playwright William Shakespeare immortalized the words upon which empires are built when his Henry V refused to share the honor with yet one more man from England! “If it is a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive,” he cries.
So you can see that it is pride, honor, and material success that will spur men on to incredible feats requiring reservoirs of courage, daring, and superhuman effort. This is what it takes for humanist man to build his institutions, governments, and economies.
What then do Christians have to do with these great powers? Do wise men have a place here, where pride and lust dominate just about every institution? Yes. According to this text, their role is to cast down the strength of the confidence thereof. Where proud men break God’s laws with impunity, a wise man must figure out how to cast these things down. If a wise man casts down the strength of the confidence of these cities, to what end does he do this? Of course, this wise man isn’t a destructive anarchist at all. Rather, he is bringing down the pride. He works hard to decentralize the power systems, stripping back the power of tyrants whose solutions are always found in centralizing power. Human pride always leads to autonomy and a rejection of God’s laws. So the wise man sets out to establish humble institutions, governments, and industries. He would prefer family economies to large corporate, institutionalized systems. He advocates one-on-one discipleship over large, proud universities, whose goal it is to mass-produce proud and smart technicians for constructing large, centralized systems. Therefore, this man will institute mentorship programs within corporations, for example. He will disciple college students within the universities. If he is elected to serve in powerful civil governments, he serves with humility and works to reduce his power and decrease his budgets, and thereby pushes power downhill. These are not easy tasks. But the wise man will find a way to bring it about.
1. What things do we seek after more than anything else in life? What does the Bible promise to those who will seek?
2. What is the chief motivating factor in the lives of those humanists who build large empires? How does the Christian differ from the humanist?